Monday, January 31, 2011

Folks at the WSJ seem to get excited over finding a video of the Varyag that was posted online in China (here). Really, is there any reason for this kind of reaction when pictures of the Varyag are everywhere including this blog (here) (here)?

BEIJING, China — China says it sent two passenger planes on Monday to pick up its citizens stranded in Cairo as anti-government protests in Egypt show no sign of easing.

The website of the official People's Daily newspaper says Air China and Hainan Airlines have each sent an Airbus A330 plane to Cairo to evacuate Chinese citizens. Each plane can carry about 250 passengers. The report says there are more than 500 Chinese at the airport.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that China hopes normalcy and stability will be restored in Egypt soon.

A notice on the website of the Chinese Embassy in Cairo says that China has issued a travel warning and requested its citizens not to travel to Egypt. It said embassy staff have been giving food and water to Chinese at the airport.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Q-5J (30093 and 30094) twin-seater trainer of the 82nd Attack Regiment, 28th Attack Division, post for photo after replacing the old JJ-6 that has been in service for more than 30 years. In addition to a new fleet of "modern" fighters, the PLAAF is also procuring more specialized training assets -- a trend that is ignored by some of the PLA watchers out there.

Friday, January 28, 2011

According to the website "thaiarmedforce.com" Thailand's Defense Technology Institute's Homeland Security Rocket Project has been commissioned with the 711st artillery battalion, Royal Thai Army.

This marks a second the 2nd export adoption of the WS-1 long-range rocket system by the China National Precision Machinery Corporation (CPMIEC). The 302mm WS-1 Multiple Rocket System has a range up to 180km and able to carry a number warheads, including 475 SZB-1 sub-munitions (500 bullets per submunition), ZDB-2B HE Fragmentation, YDB-1 Fuel Air explosive and 24,000 incendiary pellets. WS-2, the next generation of the WS family rockets, has a range of 350km, with no foreign adoption thus far.

Turkey manufactures the WS-1 MRL under license as the T-300 Kasirga with the first delivery date of 1998.

At 10:20 on January 25, in the cabin of the “Qiandaohu” warship of the 7th Chinese naval escort taskforce implementing escort mission in the Gulf of Aden, Chen Chen, a female university-student sailor, piloted the warship steadily to sail along the escort route. Up to now, all the 14 female sailors who are included in the warship operational duty posts of the escort taskforce in the first batch have initially possessed the capacity in performing duty on their own.

It is learned that now in the world, all naval ships of major countries have female sailors to implement ocean-going training and combat tasks. Previously, the Chinese female soldiers going out with the naval ships mainly serve as medical worlers, interpretors and cultural workers. In June 2010, the Navy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) decided to include female sailors into the combat duty posts on the three warships in the 7th naval escort taskforce, in a bid to cultivate female sailors capable of fulfilling combat duties.

In early September 2010, the East China Sea Fleet of the PLA Navy selected 14 female soldiers with outstanding comprehensive quality from hundreds of female soldiers in several troop units and assigned them to such posts of the naval ships as signal, telegraph, radar, steering and sail-and-cordage.

During the nearly 3-month-long ocean-going escort operation, the 14 female sailors smoothly passed the assessment of actual professional operation, initially possessing the capability in performing duty on their own.

Seeing the 12 Chinese and foreign merchant ships sailing safely under the escort of the Chinese naval ship she was piloting, Chen Chen said excitedly, "I never thought that I could get a ‘piloting license’ of naval ship in the Gulf of Aden."

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

With all those attention paid to PLAN's modernization drive, the North Sea Fleet still trains combat missions around Yellow Sea with the old 40 years old Luda class DDG (here). For those sailors, the only modern comfort they can write-home-about is their newly issued cold weather gears.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

According to the Chinese media 南方日报 Southern Daily (here) a jet crashed during landing. Eyewitness confirmed it is a J-8II(serial number 21107) of the PLAAF 8th Air Division. The pilot ejected safely, no other injuries reported.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Judging from this publicly released photo of a J-10S sporting a serial number of 60x8x, it seems that PLAAF's 1st "Blue Army" Regiment, Flight Test & Training Center, is increasing in size to take on more twin-seaters for its training curriculum.

As the PLAAF takes on more modern fighters into its orbat, it is logistical to assume its training infrastructure would increase in due course.

Previous entry on the "Bad Guys" of the PLAAF.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

"Bad guy" Su-30MKK of the PLAAF 8th Flight Academy (61x8x).

The 8th PLAAF Flight Academy is home to the SU-30MKK fighter-bomber "Blue-Army Aggressor Squadron." It is trained to act as the "bad guy" in war-games by simulating the US F-15E or other SU-30 equipped Asian air forces.

There are a total of three Blue-Army Aggressor squadrons under the PLAAF orbat; the other two are equipped with J-10A (60x8x) and J-7E (15xxx) to simulate lighter, single engine, opponents. These squadrons operate under the PLAAF Flight Test & Training Base (FT&TB) at Cangzhou Airbase in Hebei.

The first PLAAF aggressor squadron was commissioned in June 1987 (here) and was modeled after the US "Top Gun" and "Red Flag" schools. It has been serving as a grindstone for sharpening pilot combat skills ever since. Yup, they are putting their skills acquired from the Moscow Pilot School to good use. (here)